LayerWear Basics Review by Kari

Friday, August 12, 2011

LayerWear Basics contacted us to see if we could review one of their products. Created out of frustration from trying to find fun and modest clothing without success, the founder of LayerWear decided to create a line tailored to navigate the fashion complications of a woman concerned with modesty. I wore LW's pencil skirt in navy to work to see how it held up. Here are my findings...

Fabric: Described on their site as a durable heavyweight Cotton/Lycra, I did find the jersey to have a heavy weight to it which lead to little overstretching throughout the day. I didn't need to wear a slip or anything to supplement the skirt. I felt comfortable wearing this in my corporate office all day without getting any weird looks about the fabric being too casual.

Fit: I ordered a size Large and the fit was pretty good but a bit snug. I'm a curvy Latin girl so I know I have more going on in my booty/hip area than most but a Large usually works for me on bottom. I definitely had to do a little shimmying to get myself into the skirt. You can see in the pics below, though, that there was a fair amount of pulling through the hip area which is not super flattering. I guess I could have gone a size up but then it would have been longer and I'm almost 5"4' and I like to keep my skirts right around knee to try to keep myself looking as tall as possible.

Wearability: Because of the jersey fabric, this skirt is definitely one of the comfiest pencil skirts I've worn. Sometimes pencil skirts can be so constricting and uncomfortable (unless you're Elaine and you're a pro at them!) but not this one. On LW's site you can see that they have this skirt both with the panel folded down and up. I wore mine folded down all day and found that during the course of the day it would get scrunched and wouldn't stay nicely folded. If it were sewed down, that would definitely help a lot. When I was playing around with styling the skirt, I did fold up the panel but for Shorty McShorterstein over here, that look was not going to fly. The panel was tall and covered me up to my ribs. Not the most flattering proportion, but again that could be mostly due to my body type and height. Also, because LW aims to make modest basics, this skirt does not have a slit like most pencils do and this aspect made it a little difficult to walk. I definitely had to take smaller steps than normal. The fabric is stretchy but because it's a heavier fabric, there's not as much give when you walk. What I do like about this skirt is that it can be styled for the office or for a night on the town! For me, to wear it folded down with a shirt tucked it, I would definitely layer it with a long cardigan or oversized blazer to help with the portions. Otherwise, I also tried styling it with a longer, blousey shirt untucked and belted which I thought was cute and showed off my waist and hid the pulling through the hip area.

Value: This skirt costs $35 + shipping which, in my opinion, is a fair price for a skirt like this. Most pencil skirts from other companies could cost you at least this much if not double (of course that depends on the fabric/lining/etc.). Would I buy this skirt for myself? I'm not sure. I work in a corporate office so the pieces I buy I have to wear a lot and I need them to be timeless and long lasting. I would probably put this toward an investment piece that I know I could get a ton of wear out of.

Conclusion: Totally up to you! There are some nice things about this skirt and some things that were not so flattering to my own body type. If you are looking for perfectly modest basics that are moderately priced then I would give it a whirl. If you do, let me know how they look on you!!

I think you look awesome... Then again, I'm biased as the owner of LWB :) Thanks for the thorough review. Just wanted to give you my feedback on some points you make. I think you wore it great but most of my customers do layer the skirt with a tunic or longer top, so you get a nice tapered look but the "curvy" part wouldn't show. Then adjusting the fold-over panel becomes helpful, since again, most of my clients are concerned with having the skirt be at knee length. As for being a little narrow to walk...you'll look chic and get a workout as well! Thanks Kari!

Hmm, Kari, where are these made? You make it sound like a smaller operation, but the price tag is really reasonable, so I wonder...

You're right, the skirt is just a bit too stretched on you. It needs a little more room. It looks like it's been stretched.(Elaine has commented on Kyoto Maiko, but I wasn't aware this was a team blog).

You are darling! You are always darling but the whole look caught me off guard and in the first photo, I almost didn't recognize my own sister!! What? You got the fashion model look going on. The bottom one definitely looks likeyou and is my fave photo. Loves!